Saturday, 15 October 2005

I was asked in Comments a while ago about my hacks and seeing that's one area of custom content I haven't addressed here yet in its own thread, that's what I'm going to do now!

These are the absolute essential hacks that I could not play Sullivan without:

Autonomous Casual Romance - I'm using Version 2, which is in beta right now but you can still download the older version.Monique's computer, updated for AL by Chaavik - I use this for loans, college funds and when I'm too lazy to send my Sims shopping. My adult education courses use the "Work at Home" feature for term papers.Insimenator - INVALUABLE! There are other hacks that do most of the things InSim can do but none are as convenient for me. I love just spawning off little sections of it and deleting them again, all without going into buy mode.Inteenimater - This is what I use to punish my teens with teen pregnancy, which I've only done once so far in Sullivan. I also use the birth control and fertility treatment options all the time. Inteen also adds the capability of miscarriages, which adds some drama to the hood.

Cyjon's Debugger - I promise you, even if you can't see a use for it now, you need this! The relationship check alone is invaluable. If you have a couple where one Sim suddenly won't accept the other's advances or if you don't have the Propose option and can't figure out why, the relationship check may be just what you need!

Now I use a truly absurd amount of hacks in my game so this isn't a complete list by any means. These are just the hacks that I make use of most often and that most affect my game play. If you've seen me mention a hack that I haven't listed here and would like to know where I got it or if you have another kind of question, feel free to let me know in the comments!

8 comments:

Do you use the Community Time Project mod that's available at MATY?I notice it's not on your list.If you don't use it, how do you deal with the time anomalies when visiting/returning from a community lot?

Honestly, the time anomalies are something that have never bothered me. When they get home, I just adjust their energy to about where it should be for whatever time of the day it happens to be. That's about the only real issue I have with community lot visits in the game and it's one I find pretty simple to get around. :)

I've been using it for quite a while but recently I've had problems with new adults, either just grown up or just returned from Uni - if I send them a community lot on their first day back in the hood the mod keeps them away for days not hours!! I'm able to repair the damage to ages and time etc using various mods but it's a pain not to mention disconcerting.I'm considering removing the Community Time lot project again. I know I'm going to miss it and I'm interested in how others playing a realistic hood, deal with the "groundhog day" effect.

It seems like I've misunderstood the point of this hack. You send them to a community lot and you don't follow them there? Interesting but I'm pretty glad I've never downloaded it now, because I can't really imagine a situation where I'd want to do that.

I find the time thing kind of works to my advantage sometimes anyway. My Sims are at community lots for up to 48 hours sometimes, because sometimes it takes longer than I'd like to set up shots for the blog. I'm not particularly keen on having my Sims age while they're gone (if say, I've forgotten to turn off aging) and then having to fix all that up once I'm done. I have to fiddle with ages enough to play the way I do!

No, I've explained it poorly!You go with your sim to the community lot and do whatever and return home again as usual. The difference with using the Community Time mod is when the home lot loads you get a message telling how long you sim has been away and what time they will return. While you are waiting for them to return you can play any remaining sims in the house but they cannot leave the lot to visit another community lot until the first sim returns. The sims left behind can still go to work, school etc. I do find it limiting in that respect -like not being able to send teens to my teen hangout or the park if their parents were still at work in their owned business.Now I understand why your sims seem to get up to so much in your sessions - there's no time limit lol! and I can see the mod wouldn't work at all for your game play. Yesterday I had two sims go downtown for a few hours but the mod told me they were gone 6 days!!! I hate to think what it would make of a 48 hour visit!!Anyway, I've now taken the mod out and back to playing normal Maxis time once more :)

The link you have for "College Harder Grades" doesn't seem to work, do you have any idea where I could get it? I did a quick look at the Sims 2 graveyard, and a google search but didn't come up with anything. I would really like that mod! College is too easy, but I still want them to actually do schoolwork without getting a 4.0.

Yes, AncientHighway shut down his site a while back, unfortunately. They have some, but not all, of his hacks at Simbology but luckily, Harder Grades is one that they do have! I've updated this post with the new link - thanks for the nudge!